Regarding My Practical Opinions of Society.

POLITICS means dealings with people. I do not mean that when I make practical opinions about a nation at large, and especially England or Britain. I form my opinions on such subjects with as much right and conviction as any man. They are very dear to me, for I consider my country to be as important to my identity as my family. No more should I wish to see my country injured or derided than I should wish to see my family injured or derided. All the same, intellectually I must consider these views as subordinate to my philosophical and religious beliefs, although in many respects they are more immediately important to me and more directly affecting. This does not mean I want to see my social views, or social views with which I earnestly agree, expressed in the pulpit, no more than I want to see another's with which I fervently disagree (and therefore I go not to church). Priests or preachers are given perhaps twenty minutes, at most once a week, to give a godly and devout sermon in church; they choose instead to give a speech in the House of Commons, at least in the imagination of their hearts. Rather than be wise and worthy they are bigoted and contentious. Everyone has the right to his views, that does not mean they are demanded upon to express them, and especially not so during services given in honour of God. Now I am conscious that some of my carefully considered and sincerely held opinions render me unwelcome in many places, and I never was one to linger where unwanted nor to be oblivious to a hint, but I detest peer pressure in all its forms. I would rather be friendless than thoughtless.

   Some may wonder how I reconcile the idealism of my religious and philosophical convictions with the pragmatism of my social opinions; but it is very easy. In the context of the One True and Supreme God the idealism can only be realised in the totality which He makes up. Everything below that, all which is particulate, such as human affairs, is a matter of compromise. The best we can endeavour towards is to estimate in our imperfect and compromised states the greatness of God, and to that end a healthful and well-ordered society is indispensable. We represent God's likeness as mirrors to our own weal, not to His which requires it not, that is the meaning of symbolism. Some, in mistaking the particles for the totality, attempt to impose this heavenly order in a temporal space such as a nation, to disastrous effect. To impose Utopia is always to necessitate absolute domination, and power corrupts. That is why the Marxist ideal has proved so terrible and damaging in its effects on the world, and that is why secular idealism is so utterly flawed, for attempting to make God out of man. I focus mainly on my own society, for not presuming to know what is best for others, but I think the principles should apply in general to all humanity.